Brenda W.

asked • 11/25/15

English summary

Three of the following passages are sentence fragments (that is,incomplete sentence) .One is complete sentence with an implied subject.Which one is a incomplete sentence? a) Vacuum the living room and clean the bathroom b) Shaking her head violently as she started to cry. c) The fish while they swam around the aquarium. d) Never in all my years of rock climbing.

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Lisa W. answered • 11/25/15

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A is an incomplete sentence with an implied subject (You).  The other 3 are fragments of a sentence.  
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Lisa W.

B could be a sentence if you changed the way it was written.  
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11/25/15

Ed M.

The sentence a) is a complete sentence, I think you mean. You correctly note that its implied subject is you, and note one of the descriptions for the question that Brenda gave: "One is complete sentence with an implied subject."
 
The sentence in question has two verbs that are in the imperative mood (i.e., they express commands): vacuum (the living room) and clean (the bathroom). And traditionally sentences with imperative verbs are said to have an "implied" or "understood" subject you which therefore allows such sentences to be classified as complete under the stricture that all complete sentences in English must have a subject and a verb. (Interestingly, in some languages the word for 'you' in commands is always expressed; in formal German, for example, 'Clean the room' is Säubern Sie das Zimmer, literally 'Clean you the room'.)
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11/26/15

Ed M.

And yes, sentence b) would be a complete sentence if not for the subordinating conjunction as, which requires that it and the clause that comes after it be joined to a main clause (i.e., one that contains at least a subject and a verb) to create a complete sentence, e.g., She shook her head violently as she started to cry. So just omitting the as would be the simpler solution, and traditionally a comma is required after the introductory participial clause, i.e., Shaking her head violently, she started to cry.
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11/26/15

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